5 Easy Steps for Cleaning Out Your Wardrobe

Timothy Parent is the founder of China Fashion Bloggers and has followed Shanghai Fashion Week for 15 seasons and Fashion Now in Beijing for six seasons. In his latest Fashion Column for That’s, he talks about the ways you the consumer will influence the fashion industry in 2017.

Is it possible to have too many clothes?

While there’s no correct answer, I’d
argue that having more clothes doesn’t
necessarily mean you’ll be happier or better
dressed. In fact, it may make it harder to find
what you’re looking for.

And I don’t just mean asking your ayi
where that one t-shirt is. Sometimes having
too many choices makes it difficult to maintain
a cohesive sense of self; we evolve and
adapt, and so should our wardrobes.

So even though shops, brands, and the
media alike will all be telling you that you
need to add this or must have that for spring,
I’d like to propose cleaning out your closet
in order to improve it. Here are five simple
steps...

Step 1: Prepare Yourself Mentally

The first step is simply agreeing with yourself
that you need to do some spring cleaning
and that it will be better for you in the end.
Clutter has been proven to affect people mentally,
emotionally, and even physically, so having
a clean environment should have positive
effects on your general well being. You should
also come up with an approximation of what
percentage you want to get rid of, such as 10
percent or 30 percent. If you’re really ambitious,
try and get rid of 50 percent.

Step 2: Take Everything Out

Take literally everything out of your closet.
This way you can visualize just how many
clothes you have and how much space you
have to keep them. Seeing an empty closet
will definitely help you breathe better, and it’s
easier to put things back than pull things out.

Step 3: Put Back the Pieces You LOVE

Put back your absolute favorites, the pieces
you can’t live without. You’ll see your closet
slowly fill up with your most-used, mostloved
pieces and feel like all that extra stuff
only distracts you from the core of your
wardrobe.

Make sure to stick with your original
targets, and stop putting clothes back if
you have to squeeze them into your closet,
because there will always be new clothes!
There’s no absolute right or wrong amount
so there’s no need to stress, but as de-clutter
guru Marie Kondo points out you should only
keep things that bring you joy.

Step 4: Donate or Swap Your Previously
Loved Items

Try to distinguish between clothes you used to
love and clothes you currently love… If something
is still in good condition, you can make
sure it still goes to good use!

There are plenty
of places to drop off clothes you no longer want
or need: any H&M store, select Element Freshrestaurants through Fiber Projects, and soon REFORM will partner with locations such as
offices and schools to not only offer donation
boxes but also workshops and educational
activities.

And during Shanghai Fashion
Week there will be a special project called ‘The
Greatest You Charity Popup Shop’ with shipping
containers around the city where you can
donate clothes, which will then travel around
China for more swapping until finally arriving
back in Shanghai to close the loop.

Step 5: Save Up and Invest in Pieces
You’ll Always Love

Once you’ve re-arranged your closet with only
pieces you love, you’ll know better what you’re
looking for! And instead of buying cheaper
items that you’re bound to throw out, buy
fewer, higher-quality items to create a wardrobe
full of clothes you’re obsessed with and
that will last a lifetime. If you calculate costper-wear,
a coat for RMB3,000 worn 100 times
is much cheaper than a dress for RMB100 that
you wear once.

To put the ‘quality over quantity’ theory
to test, I encourage you to try the ‘Project 333’
challenge. Wear only 33 items – including
clothing, accessories, jewelry and shoes – for
the next three months. After that, cleaning out
your wardrobe should be a much easier task.